Construction companies struggle to track all of the trucking loads performed by both owned and outsourced construction vehicles. As used herein the term “construction vehicle” includes vehicles commonly used in construction and demolition work, including as example: tractor-trailer combinations; semitrailers; dedicated haulers for carrying heavy equipment; gooseneck, closed and flatbed trailers towed by a tractor or truck; panel trucks, vans and vehicles configured to haul construction materials and supplies; cranes, dump trucks, cement or asphalt mixers, excavators, pavers, graders and other road legal construction equipment and truck-trailer combinations for transporting construction equipment. Existing tracking tools for construction vehicles are too cumbersome or expensive to be practical. Tracking of construction vehicles at construction sites is critical to managing costs and staging of supplies for the construction project at the site.
Paper logging systems require human monitoring of the construction vehicle traffic at a job site, and written entry of construction vehicle identification, load or equipment carried, arrival time, and departure time by construction site personnel. The paper log is not available to a central process such as a programmable computer database, unless the data from the paper log is entered by manual data entry. Even if the data is entered into an automated system for use, the data is not available until the paper log is collected and the data is entered. The information about construction vehicle activity is not available at the time the work is performed, and can only be accessed at a later time. Paper logs can be lost and human errors in data entry, or lack of data entry if a construction vehicle arrives when the site is not manned, can create inaccuracies.
Construction vehicles have been equipped with on-board tracking devices. A dedicated global positioning system (GPS) transmitter can be mounted within a construction vehicle. GPS transmitters include those that plug into the on-board diagnostic (OBD-II) port of a vehicle, and also include other dedicated GPS systems. The GPS system is expensive and requires a permanent installation in the construction vehicle. To use the GPS equipment, a monthly subscription with a GPS service provider is required. While the GPS system can indicate the location of the construction vehicle, the equipment installation and subscription costs make use of the GPS system costly. Alternative tracking systems, including dedicated radio frequency vehicle tracking hardware and cellular tracking systems, are similarly costly.
In a construction project, construction vehicles such as trucks or tractor trailers are used to transport materials such as asphalt, rebar, concrete, sheetrock, paint, steel, stone, gravel, brick, lumber and other materials needed to perform the construction are often leased. Installation of a permanent GPS transceiver is not practical for leased trucks, because the owner of the construction project does not own the truck, and the installation and later removal of a GPS transceiver is not feasible for trucks used only temporarily. Cellular network tracking systems and dedicated radio tracking systems for vehicles have similar limitations.